Why Prop. 30 won't save our state economy

[caption id="attachment_70487" align="alignright" width="300"] Gov. Jerry Brown, who supported Prop.30, speaks at the University of California Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012. Brown is set to make his first appearance where he's expected to urge UC officials to control costs and avoid raising tuition. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)[/caption]

MISSION VIEJO, Erik Wendehost: L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa misses a clear point in his column, “Time to invest in the future” [Opinion, Nov. 13]. He extolled the virtues of Proposition 30, which passed 54 percent to 46 percent, but why was the voting so close? Why wasn't it 80 percent to 20 percent or 90 percent to 10 percent?

The rich are clearly outnumbered by an electorate who can vote themselves benefits through increased taxes on this small population. The vote was closer because many Californians realized that raising taxes on job creators or investors means less growth for the economy.

The incentive to economically overachieve diminishes as both California and our federal government increase taxes on this same small population segment that will change its habits and adapt to the changing environment. This will not increase gross domestic product but will likely stunt growth as investments and purchases are curtailed. Holding public education hostage for these increases was deplorable and scared the electorate into submission.

I also wonder what he means by reforming Prop. 13. Perhaps a reset in all property taxes so the government can gain even more tax revenue to build trains and provide more services used by many but funded by few?

Finally, the country remains divided, not unified, and did not come together to elect the president. Barack Obama faces the daunting task of managing an economy without trillions in stimulus funds that were used during the first four years. The U.S. wishes him the best but justly fears for the future.

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LAKE FOREST, Jim Richert: California voters continue to inflict pain and suffering on themselves, most recently with approval of Prop. 30. Within 12 months Sacramento will need even more money, since it will waste Prop. 30 revenue on noneducation spending, or it still won't be enough to satisfy its big union supporters and its special interests. Then what?

The answer will be another tax increase. Voters have now given the Democrats a supermajority in the Assembly and Senate. Only this time, a tax increase or revisions to Prop. 13 won't require voter approval and will be safe from a veto by Gov. Jerry Brown, which is the scariest part of this election.

The ‘corporate state'

IRVINE, Norman G. Ewers: In regard to the welfare state: Columnist Robert J. Samuelson writes that the “first thing we need to admit is that it exists” [“First step in reforming welfare state is to acknowledge it,” Opinion, Nov. 11].

The U.S. is now a corporate state dominated by the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about, where corporations are granted personhood; organized labor is seen as a threat to the bottom line; defined-benefit employee pensions are replaced by 401(k) retirement plans that provide little guarantee workers will ever have a comfortable retirement; the children of working-class parents doubt they will ever do better than their parents; single-payer, tax-supported universal health insurance, common to other industrialized nations at less cost and better results, is poison to the insurance and drug industries and to be avoided at all cost; and where taxes are a burden to business to be avoided whatever the effect on the national welfare.

Trafficking in more debt

DANA POINT, Sheldon Pines: Register reporter Claudia Koerner wrote that, as part of efforts to relieve traffic on the I-5, construction will begin in 2018 to widen the stretch of the I-5 from the 73 Toll Road to El Toro Road [“OCTA to ease gridlock with $1 billion,” News, Nov. 10]. Construction will continue for four years at a cost of $560 million.

It is ironic that an alternate freeway already exists that can accomplish this. That is the 73 Toll Road itself, which has both the capacity now and the potential to easily add more in the median of the road. If the 73 Toll Road was a nontoll road, traffic on the I-5/I-405 would be relieved from San Juan Capistrano to Costa Mesa.

The toll road was intended to become a nontoll road when the bonds used to pay for its construction are paid off. Unfortunately, traffic and revenue on the 73 has not allowed the bonded indebtedness to be reduced. In fact, the debt actually increases every year, and the outlook for improvement is bleak because the debt service requirement goes up regularly and there is little capacity for population growth west of the I-5/I-405.

Eventually, the finances for the 73 will have to be dealt with. It would be nice if this happened before $560 million was spent on an alternative, and drivers had to endure four years of construction headaches.

Ban plastic bag bans

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